When you bring a new puppy into your home you will find that lots of friends and family members may want to give you advice on how best to house (toilet) train it.  Chopping and changing to different methods will be very confusing, ineffective and frustrating for you and your dog. 

Therefore I strongly advise you to pick one method and stick to it.  There are no quick fixes, and accidents WILL happen, so be prepared to invest several weeks (at least) to successfully house-train your puppy, or face having your polished porcelain and solid oak floors ruined by years of ‘accidents’ from a badly trained dog.  Believe me, the investment is worth it!

Your puppy will need to relieve itself after each meal (from as quickly as 5 minutes after eating), when it wakes up after a nap, after playing and probably a few more times sporadically throughout the day.

A method that worked fantastically for my dog is ‘crate’ training:

Firstly, you will need to introduce your puppy to the outside area where you would like it to do its business.  If you teach it to do its business inside at the start, you are facing an uphill struggle to then get it to understand that you want it to occur outside – my advice is, start as you mean to go on.  Secondly, you will also need to use this method in conjunction with the crate.

Part 1 – ‘Get Busy’!

Bring your puppy to the designated area to do its business. Then do not interact with your puppy – no eye contact, no verbal contact, no touching.  Wait for it to sniff around - it may start circling which is a sign that it is about to go.  As soon as it starts relieving itself give it the verbal command ‘get busy’ (or whatever vocabulary you choose) to encourage it. 

Say this verbal command EACH and EVERY time your dog relieves itself.   Later on you can use this command on walks to let you know where it is appropriate to do its business.  Afterwards praise it enthusiastically in a high pitched voice saying good boy/girl.

As a rule of thumb, puppies’ bladders can last for as many months as they are alive + 1 hour.  So a 2 month old puppy can last for 2hours +1 = 3 hours.  A three month old puppy can last for 3 hours +1 = 4 hours, and so on until a 6 month old puppy can last 6 hours +1 = 7 hours – so now it can last throughout the night!

Part 2 - Using the crate

It is instinctual for a puppy not to dirty its bed.  Therefore, you will need to bring your puppy on a lead, to the designated ‘busy’ area at relevant intervals during the night (depending on the puppy’s age)!  This is why it is so important to be fully aware of your responsibilities of adopting a puppy and just how serious a commitment it is!

As with babies, getting up during the night is difficult at the start, however unlike babies a puppy usually lasts the whole night through by the age of 6 months or less.  6 months of investment now, for a lifetime of ease later is well worth the investment!  I have heard lots of people complain about the fact that they still dread waking up every morning to enter the kitchen to the aroma of dog poo and pee – sometimes after they have stepped in it with their slippers – or worse… bare feet!

Designating an outside (toilet) area and using the crate are a very effective way of successfully house-training your puppy.